The Billionaire Heiress’s Secret Bodyguard

Adrian Kessler, a retired special-forces operator, fights ten men in a single night in an underground ring to raise the $300,000 his mother needs for surgery. On the rain-soaked drive back he pulls Elena Voss, heiress of the Voss Group, out of a kidnapping — and misses his mother's last moments because of it. Richard Voss offers him a million dollars in thanks; he refuses. What finally makes him say yes is his sister Mia's tuition, and the one line he lives by: "We may be poor, but we don't bow our heads." He takes the post of "GM assistant" — twenty-four-hour close protection — on his own terms: fifty thousand up front, a fixed term, a company job rather than a private hire. Elena treats him like furniture: she tosses him her car keys, bans him a chair, has a desk moved into her own office to crowd him out. He polishes his shoes, folds his jacket, and keeps his head down — until it is time to move. Then he catches playboy Julian van der Berg's wrist mid-grab and teaches him respect with two slaps; and when Julian has him framed for a six-month-old stabbing and an interrogation room tries to make him sign a confession, he answers: "Why would I confess to something I didn't do?" Star Lucia Moreau keeps circling him, Detective Lena Brandt keeps chasing him and keeps coming up empty — while what he is really after is the old debt of his parents, who were worked and cheated to death in a demolition deal.